Embarcadero slashes prices with new bundles

Tools company Embarcadero is to bundle its complete set of development software together in a move that its chief evangelist describes as the "most complete application toolchest currently available".

By
Maxwell Cooter
| Feb 17, 2009

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Tools company Embarcadero is to bundle its complete set of development software together in a move that its chief evangelist describes as the "most complete application toolchest currently available".

The company said that the bundle, All-Access, would also be offered at radically reduced prices.

The company has included web development tools, such as Delphi, JBuilder, and C++ Builder -which were acquired as a result of Embarcadero's 's purchase of CodeGear last year - and database tools, as ER/Studio, DBArtisan and ChangeManager in the bundle, so that developers who work in different platforms and on different applications would be able to use the relevant tools.

Embarcadero's chief evangelist, Greg Keller said that the move had been inspired by users who were already employing one application from the company but who had indicated that they would use more if the pricing hadn't been prohibitive.

"We now bundle applications together at a lower cost than they used to cost individually," he said. "At the same time, we've not cut back on the applications, all our bundles contain all 18 Embarcadero tools."

As an example, he said that the Bronze version of All-Access would start from $2,250 (£1,580), rising up to $8,250 (£5,800) for the starting price of the Platinum mode - all packages include support and maintenance. On top of that, the single licence for All-Access will enable easier budgeting and compliance.

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The company has also introduced a proprietary piece of software called Instant-On that offers the users an option not to install the software on their own machines. "Users will be able to run products without installing them - although it will appear as if they had," said Keller. He said that Instant-On was an option and not mandatory but said that it did offer users a better way to use their resources.

Keller claimed that none of Embarcadero's competitors was offering a range of products on this scale. He said that the nearest comparison was with Microsoft's MSDN model. "Although," he stressed, "All-Access is not a subscription model. It's paid for - which means that users can capitalise the assets."

"There's been a change in the nature of the IT role," said Keller. "The developer world used to be incredibly siloed - that's all changed. Teams have become much more team-oriented and have to work more closely with other parts of the organisation."

He said that this process had been accelerated by the economic downturn with whole swathes of developers being laid off and other parts of the organisation having to pick up the pieces and work in areas they might not know particularly well. "We've had long-term customers saying that they didn't know what they were doing on a project because more than half a team has been laid off."

Kelller added that existing Embarcadero users should not feel neglected by the bundling. "There's an attractive upgrade scheme available," he said.